Krystian Zimerman(born December 5, 1956) is a Polish classical pianist who has been hailed as one of the finest living pianists.

Zimerman was born in Zabrze, Poland, and studied at the University of Music in Katowice under Andrzej Jasiński. His career was launched when he won the 1975 Warsaw International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition. He performed with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan in 1976 and he made his debut in the United States with the New York Philharmonic in 1979. He has toured widely and made a number of recordings. Since 1996 he has taught piano at the Academy of Music in Basel, Switzerland.Zimerman is best known for his interpretations of Romantic music, but has performed a wide variety of classical pieces as well. He has also been a supporter of contemporary music. For example, Witold Lutosławski wrote his piano concerto for Zimerman, who later recorded it. Amongst his best-known recordings are the piano concerti of Edvard Grieg and Robert Schumann with conductor Herbert von Karajan; the Brahms concerti with Leonard Bernstein, the piano concerti of Frédéric Chopin, one recording conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini and a later one conducted by himself at the keyboard; the Third, Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos of Beethoven under Bernstein (Zimerman himself led the accompaniment of the Vienna Philharmonic from the keyboard in Beethoven's First and Second Concertos); the first and second piano concerti of Rachmaninoff; the piano concerti of Franz Liszt with Seiji Ozawa, the piano concerti of Maurice Ravel with Pierre Boulez, and solo piano works by Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy and Franz Schubert. In 2006, Zimerman recorded Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 with Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle (DG 477 5413; Limited Edition DG 477 6021)...

Armand Georg Raoul (von) Koczalski (3 January 1884, Warsaw – 24 November 1948, Poznań) was a Polish pianist and composer, who fulfilled his promise (first shown as a child prodigy) to become one of the great pianists of all time.Koczalski was taught first by his mother, then by Julian Godomski: having made a public appearance in 1888 (aged 4) his parents took him to play for Anton Rubinstein, who foresaw the possibility of a performing career. He studied at Lviv Conservatory, first with Ludwig Marek and then under Karol Mikuli, Chopin's favorite Polish student and assistant. At the age of 7 he gave concerts and at 9 he was playing in major European cities as a virtuoso. His thousandth concert was given in Leipzig in 1896, and by the age of 12 he had received awards such as the Order of the Lion and Sun, (from the Shah of Persia), the title of Court Pianist (from the King of Spain) and a medal from the Turkish Sultan. Even as a child he had a very extensive repertoire. During World War I he was interned in Germany.

Koczalski was highly esteemed as a performer of Chopin in Germany, where he lived during the 1920s and 1930s. In that period he toured in France, Italy and Poland, but (despite many invitations) not in the United States of America. He was interned in Berlin during the Second World War, and in 1945 he went to live in Poznan, accepting a post as professor in the State Higher School of Music. As a performer, the complete works of Chopin and the complete Beethoven sonatas lay at the core of a very extensive repertoire from the classical and romantic genres...

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